IRIS Movie of the Day
At least once a week a movie of the Sun taken by NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is posted by one of the scientists operating the instrument.
Filament Activation Near Soon-to-be-named Active Region
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, /Nicole Schanche
Filaments are long regions of cool, dense gas on the sun held down by the magnetic field. Filaments can be stable for long periods of time (weeks to months) but sometimes they are disrupted, causing a filament activation, where material moves around and brightens, or even a filament eruption, where the material is ejected from the Sun. This filament activation happened northeast of the soon-to-be-named AR12559. Material is first seen moving from right to left across the field of view, but later flows can be seen moving both directions.